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Category Archives: History

Today’s downer

Sunday, January 26, 2020

You see a lot of blog post, op ed pieces, etc., like this one, in which the question is asked, more or less: how will history treat Trump and his enablers. The unspoken assumption in most of them is that history will be written from a perspective more or less in line with today’s. But that’s […]

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Looking backward

Saturday, October 19, 2019

I have mentioned in the past that I am keeping a journal on my Ipad. As a work of literature it ranks below anything I can think of, with the possible exception of Trump’s recent letter to Erdogan. But I try, every day, to put something up about developments related to the stable genius, and […]

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Must watch TV

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

This year marks the 400th anniversary of slavery in English North America. (The Spanish beat us to the punch) Purely because I believe that everyone should be aware of the impact of slavery on this nation, I am suggesting that absolutely everyone should watch this video, which previously aired on CSPAN. The fact that one […]

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The Gilded Age, a coda

Monday, May 28, 2018

I said I’d written my last post on this subject, but that was yesterday, and I just came across this. A week ago I subscribed to Foreign Affairs, since I got a deal for $20.00 a year. The most recent issue asks the question: Can Democracy be Saved? Here’s the opening paragraph from the first article, by […]

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A final lesson from the Gilded Age

Sunday, May 27, 2018

One more lesson from the Gilded Age, and, since I’ve now finished Richard White’s The Republic for Which It Stands, this will be the last.  This is not so much a parallel to our own age, but a warning of what we may have to come, assuming we survive the present state of affairs. Toward the […]

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More echoes of the Gilded Age

Thursday, May 24, 2018

I continue to plow through Richard White’s The Republic for Which It Stands. Here’s yet another way in which that age paralleled our own. First, it goes without saying that income inequality was as much of a problem then as it is now. At the time, as now, American productive capacity exceeded consumption. Americans did not […]

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Looking back: The First Gilded Age

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Having finished Grant,about which I recently wrote, I am now slowly but steadily plowing through The Republic for Which It Stands, a massive history of the Gilded Age, from The Oxford History of the United States, written by Richard White. I highly recommend it. You could build an entire semester course around it. I don’t know if it’s […]

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History isn’t always written by the winners

Monday, April 2, 2018

I just finished Ron Chernow’s Grant, a book I highly recommend.One thing the book brings home is the fact that the history of the Civil War, particularly the post-Civil War period, was written, not by the winners, but by the losers. I’ve been a history nut all my life. I remember reading every Landmark book […]

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Told you so, redux

Friday, February 23, 2018

I just want to point out that I’m over a year ahead of Mother Jones. Who is the worst president? The lowest ranked presidents are normally Franklin Pierce (helped cause the Civil War) James Buchanan (helped cause the Civil War), William Henry Harrison (refused to wear a coat during his inauguration, died), and Andrew Johnson […]

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Nothing new under the sun

Sunday, October 22, 2017

I’m currently reading a book, Three Stones Make a Wall, by an archaeologist named Eric Cline. It’s basically a history of archaeology, and would otherwise be of no interest on a political blog, except that he passes on some information that shows that there’s nothing new under the sun, and that the Karl Rove’s of […]

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